The strange new safety system that could change the way passenger planes survive crashes « Euro Weekly News

If you are sitting on a plane thousands of metres above the ground, there are probably a few things you would rather not think about. Engine failure is one. A crash is another. And the idea of your entire aircraft suddenly being wrapped in a gigantic inflatable cushion probably belongs somewhere near the bottom of the list. But two engineers in Dubai have been thinking about exactly that.

Their idea, called Project REBIRTH, would surround an aircraft with enormous external airbags if an onboard system decided a crash was unavoidable. It sounds like something from a very strange aviation-themed cartoon, but the concept tackles a serious question: if a crash cannot be prevented, could technology give passengers a better chance of surviving it?

A giant airbag for an entire aircraft

Project REBIRTH was developed by Eshel Wasim and Dharsan Srinivasan at BITS Pilani’s Dubai campus and submitted to the 2025 James Dyson Award. It is an AI-powered crash-survival concept rather than a system currently being installed on passenger aircraft. The proposed system would monitor information including an aircraft’s speed, altitude, direction, engine condition and other flight data.  If it determined that a crash was unavoidable while the aircraft was below around 3,000 feet, the airbags would be triggered automatically. And these are not the little airbags found in a car.

The design places huge inflatable structures around the front, underside and rear of the aircraft. The team proposes that they could deploy in less than two seconds, creating a protective cushion around the fuselage before impact. The system would also attempt to slow the aircraft before it reaches the ground. Reverse thrust could be used where possible, while gas thrusters are proposed as an alternative if the engines are no longer functioning.

There is even a clever liquid involved

The giant airbags are only one part of the proposal, project REBIRTH also includes non-Newtonian fluids around the cabin and seats. These unusual materials can change their behaviour when force is applied, with the designers proposing them as another way of absorbing energy during a crash. Then there is the rescue side.

The proposed aircraft would have a bright orange exterior, GPS equipment, infrared beacons and emergency lighting to make it easier for rescuers to locate after an accident. So, essentially, the plan is to make the aircraft inflatable, impact-resistant and considerably easier to find afterwards.

Could this actually work?

This is where the headline needs a little reality check. Project REBIRTH is not currently protecting passengers on commercial flights. It remains a concept requiring extensive development and testing before anything resembling it could be considered for real-world aviation. The designers have used computer simulations and developed a small-scale prototype. Their plans include larger prototypes, wind-tunnel testing and crash-sled experiments to see whether the proposed technology can cope with the forces involved. There are also some enormous practical problems.

Any system carried aboard a commercial aircraft has to justify its weight, space and complexity. A giant airbag system would need to be extremely reliable, deploy at exactly the right moment and avoid creating new dangers during an emergency. Then there is the question of whether the airbags could actually cushion an aircraft travelling at high speed without simply becoming another part of the wreckage. Those are questions that computer simulations alone cannot answer.

An idea born from a real tragedy

The project was developed following renewed attention to aircraft crash survivability after the 2025 Air India crash in Ahmedabad, which killed 260 people. The designers have said the tragedy prompted them to look at whether aircraft could be designed to offer passengers additional protection when an accident could no longer be avoided and that is the interesting part of the idea. Modern aviation puts enormous effort into preventing accidents, detecting mechanical problems and keeping aircraft in the air.

Project REBIRTH approaches the problem from another direction: what if everything has already gone wrong? For now, your next flight from Spain will still involve a perfectly ordinary aircraft, conventional safety systems and a rather less exciting-looking fuselage. There will be no enormous inflatable cushion waiting underneath it. But if the Dubai engineers can turn their bizarre-sounding idea into something that survives serious testing, the humble aircraft airbag could one day become a very different kind of aviation safety device.